


an eternity of buried mouths

by heartslogos



Category: Gideon the Ninth
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Mentions of Body Dysphoria, Nonbinary Character, Other, Speculation, Spoilers, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-24 12:24:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20705966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartslogos/pseuds/heartslogos
Summary: like that ancient love that passes in silence/ through an eternity of buried mouths.Pablo Neruda Sonnet  XCV-Necromancers, they think somewhat fondly, have a proclivity for believing themselves superior and quite clever over the average citizen of the empire. It is the adept who leads and the rest who follow. It is the necromancer who commands and the rest who listen.Therefore the natural order would be that it is the necromancer who walks on, having gained what is needed from their cavalier.That is one of the ways it can go.





	an eternity of buried mouths

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, newly ascended Lyctor, looks hollow eyed, wan, and on the verge of murderous despair.

They remember this part, too. Ah, to be young again. They remember this grief. It never goes away, not really. It simply…changes. Shifts. Transforms. Transmutes. Rots.

They do not feel much in the way of grief any longer. Frankly, they do not feel much in the way of _anything_ any longer. It has been over a thousand years since they have felt anything real and true and intimate. Every hurt, slight, an annoyance since seems to come coated in a dull, dusted coating of resignation. They are used to the hurt.

It is most unfortunate.

Young Nonagesimus has the rest of her life to come to terms with this grief, this mounting loss that will only become more apparent as the years go on.

They have no doubt in their mind that Nonagesimus is going to learn the truth of the matter. Considering the young woman’s intellect and her propensity of shouldering burdens that are not hers to bear, she will most likely come to this glaring epiphany soon.

It is doubtful that Ianthe Tridentarius will come to the same conclusion without significant prompting, most likely on Nonagesimus’ part if the two should ever come into contact with each other without wanting to spill blood. They will eventually. A millenium has worn even the most ardent of foes among the Lyctors.

Here is the simple truth of the matter, that almost the entire universe seems to have overlooked.

_It could have gone either way._

It is by no fault of Nonagesimus’ or Tridentarius’ own that they assumed what they did. That the cavalier is the fodder that becomes sacrificed for the necromancer’s benefit. They suppose that this makes sense, in hindsight.

And honestly, they did not do much to disabuse this notion from their Lyctors or the priesthood of Canaan.

In their defense, they had been wrapped up in the shroud of their own ashen grief. Consumed with their planet destroying horrors and shame. They had been preoccupied with the fresh vigor of determination to end the war. That with this sudden surge of power that they would have the advantage needed to win and finally end it. That they could return to their _one end_ and have it be done with. Such overconfidence.

They were so young, then. So stupid. So naive.

By the time they had realized that their war would not be won even with this newfound power and turned back inward it had already been done. Assumptions had been made. Societal strata had been established. Conventions were beginning to create their grooves in stone.

They were being called _God._ And _King of the Nine Renewals_ and _our Ressurector_ and _Divine_, when really they were none of those things at all.

Necromancers, they think somewhat fondly, have a proclivity for believing themselves superior and quite clever over the average citizen of the empire. It is the adept who leads and the rest who follow. It is the necromancer who commands and the rest who listen.

Therefore the natural order would be that it is the necromancer who walks on, having gained what is needed from their cavalier.

That is _one_ of the ways it can go.

It is not the way _they_ decided to go. Though they did not _decide_ much of anything at all.

The assumption that it is a rapier and a light weapon because it would be easier for a necromancer to wild once their cavalier has been absorbed is logical. They cannot fault this. But the tradition of a cavalier wielding a weapon of finesse rather than strength is one that stands on poor foundation. Finesse weapons are weapons of wealth and status. They are the essence of refinement and hold the image of nobility. Coincidentally, most necromancers are nobles. Most necromancers have nobles serving underneath them. Chances are that these nobles will rise up further and faster in the ranks due to opportunity and proximity.

The conclusion reached by Nonagesimus and Tridentarius is not wrong. It just isn’t right, either.

They had come up with a different conclusion when they had finally been pushed to that final step.

They already had the body, fully capable of violence and physical force. What it needed was a mind capable of thanergic manipulation to back it up. Therefore, would it not be logical to move the mind with the knowledge of the necromantic arts into the body that already knows combat?

Is that not what the first trial attempted to teach? That for all the knowledge a necromancer can have it is nothing if they cannot physically act upon it? That their cavaliers hold a power and reach and ability that the adepts should respect and honor?

It can go _either_ way.

This is a lesson lost to most everyone.

They turn their face towards the vast darkness of space.

Ten thousand years, and the remains of their house and former home shines at them like a baleful, pale eye, haloed by the flame of the sun. And at the other end of the solar system, their tomb calls for them and yet they cannot rest.

Ten thousand years, and their reflection no longer bothers them. In those early years it did. It was wrong. They were a woman. They were a man. They were both. They were neither. They are Necrolord Prime. The King Undying. But they were a cavalier, they were an adept. They were a pair.

Now they are one flesh without end.

Their Lyctors, at their rawest, most furious — when the centuries had dragged upon them and made them sick with desire for a terminus point of any kind — have berated them and raged upon them.

_What do you know of loss_?

They have been called petty and unfair. They have been accused of cold heartlessness. 

Sometimes they dream of another face that was once their face, but is now frozen in the depths of a cold, gray planet buried underneath stone, bone, and metal. It is a face they have not seen in ten thousand years since they first set the Ninth House to the charge of closing the tomb and setting them to wait and keep them company as they faded into nothing.

They do not know what that face looks like. Is it still frozen? Is _she_ still perfect in her captured and permanently paused youth?

This face, this body, are not the same as it was when they became the Undying, when they cheated death.

They have been called cruel for asking their Lyctors to march onwards through time whilst bearing the loss of their most beloved ones, a loss that grows with every passing minute and hour.

But they too have lost. They have lost _both_ their necromancer and adept.

The voice that speaks when they think is soundless. It is neither necromancer nor adept. It is simply…_them_. Them. Whomever that is. It is all the knowledge of the necromantic arts, it is all the knowledge of war. It is all the combined memories of both. But it is neither of them.

They can no longer remember what their voices sounded like when they were not the same voice. They are not certain that it is the voice that this body speaks with currently. They do not think that anyone remembers anymore.

Nonagesimus had called them god. And she had looked very vulnerable, very small, and very, very young when she looked up at them from her prostrate position on the cold floor in her crinkling and shining emergency thermal wrap. They felt sorry for her, truly. It is a regrettable conclusion to an unfortunate series of failures and mis-steps.

But they are not god. The universe can call them god, but they aren’t. They are a young girl and a young boy who did something very stupid because they thought they had no choice and that they could save the world.

If they were god they would be a boy and a girl and there would be no need for a Ninth House on a desolate planet so far from the sun that its inhabitants look like walking pillars of ash and there would have been no need for a First House and there would be no Lyctors and there would be no trials or House of Canaan or any of this damned nonsense.

There would be a grave for two bodies, unmarked because the stone had been eaten away by _ten thousand years_ worth of wear.

If they were god the world would not have needed saving to start with.

They saved the world once, they are in the process of saving the rest of the empire. But it has not been and never will be for themselves. It was for her. It was for him. It was not for _me_. And neither of them will ever taste the fruit of their sacrifice.

Gideon Nav of the Ninth did a very brave thing by forcing Nonagesimus’ hand. A traitorous thing, too. A familiar one, even.

Oh, their necromancer had such _gall_. It almost makes them smile.

It is a horrible thing for one to outlive the other, even worse still for one to taunt the other with their not-ghost.

They almost wish they could have something similar to that. Instead all they have is a pseudo tomb that holds a body that is and is not theirs as a testament to how they have avoided death by dying once, forever, and in the process died _twice_ perpetually.

They have half a mind to reach down and comfort her. To tell her that it will be alright, eventually this too will pass. That she will learn that all things pass, given enough time. And she has an eternity of it. Grief can be grown accustomed to. Like the weight of hair. Or the bend of joints. Or wrinkles in a face. Despair can become unnoticeable, like the feeling of well worn shoes or your own teeth in your mouth.

But they don’t.

Instead they watch and wait for Nonagesimus to compose herself, watching her out of the corner of their eye. They wonder if the woman has opened the tomb. Surely at least one person on that planet has, by now. Nonagesimus seems the type to poke and prod at something forbidden to her, insatiable and unsatisfied by the words _no_ and _forbidden. _Has she seen their secret? The death they are dying for? They wonder what she looked like. They wonder if Nonagesimus would be willing to answer.

They do not ask that, either.

Harrowhawk Nonagesimus slowly breathes in and out, the paint on her face smeared and only vaguely recognizable as a skull’s grin if one knew what to expect from a daughter of the Ninth.

She looks up and meets their eyes. Still wan. Still ashen. Still hollowed out with disappointment and hurt and dread.

But she is present and there and like a good, dutiful daughter of any of their nine houses, she pushes herself to rise to their expectations.

Harrowhawk Nonagesimus the First stands.

They hold out their hand to her.

Nonagesimus takes it. And then lowers her head to kiss their fingers, kneeling as she holds their fingertips to her paint smeared forehead. They cannot help the small swell of disappointment that bubbles up in the distant depths of themselves.

They smile, not unkindly. “Thank you. You do your house and the empire a great service.”

“It isn’t for you,” Nonagesimus says eyes flashing up at them, a belated and quickly rushed out as if momentarily forgotten, “_Lord_”, tacked on after a breath as her eyes flick away from his. Someday she will be able to meet their eyes, and perhaps she will be able to understand a portion of the great and horrible truth of her Emperor. Someday she will be as their current Lyctors, inured to the heavy shadow of the Undying, the mantle of the great Resurrector. And she will see _them_.

Someday.

Nonagesimus’ lower lip threatens to crumple like so much flimsy in a child’s fist. 

“I know,” they reply. “Whoever you do it for, thank you for doing it.”


End file.
